Much has been spoken and written about the impact the Spurs have had on the NBA as one team after another has raided the franchise’s coaching and front-office personnel in an attempt to gain some championship knowledge.

The thinking among the teams doing the raiding was that winners can reshape losers. We’ve seen some of the Spurs’ success rub off on other teams.

But now, there is a different story line that should be told.

Last Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers fired head coach Mike Brown, a former Spurs assistant. They have replaced him with another Mike, this one with the last name of D’Antoni.

Last season under Brown, the Lakers were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs.

There was little patience in LA LA Land and Brown was cut loose. He was fired as head coach in Cleveland before joining the Lakers.

In Oklahoma City, another former Spurs employee could feel some heat if the Thunder slip after advancing to the NBA Finals last season.

Thunder Executive Vice President Sam Presti helped build Oklahoma City into a title contender. However, this off-season, Presti and the Thunder made a move that could come back to haunt the defending Western Conference champions.

At press time, Oklahoma City still held the top spot in the Northwest Division. But the Thunder do not look nearly as invincible as they did with Harden in the lineup.

The NBA is all about talent and chemistry, and the Thunder clearly had enough of both to contend for a championship again this season had they made no changes.

But they did make a change. A big one.

And that move could wreck the chemistry Presti helped create.

Sometimes, when you remove a single card, the entire house comes tumbling down.

That could happen in Oklahoma City.

If it does, another former Spur will get the blame.

Others have left the Spurs only to find that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the NBA.

Danny Ferry resigned from the Cavaliers in 2010 after Brown was fired.

This June, Don Newman, who spent several years with the Spurs as an assistant coach, helping guide the franchise to multiple NBA titles, left to join the Washington Wizards staff.

At press time, the

Wizards were winless.

You don’t want to root against those who leave the Spurs in search of what they believe is a career opportunity. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing for San Antonio when the raiding backfires on other teams.

Perhaps the league will look elsewhere for talent and leave the Spurs alone for a while.

Street Cred

He’ll need to come up with something better than a hand gesture, however, to compete with the NBA’s real bad boys.

Duncan was exiting a local drug store when he encountered a woman who had waited for him, with camera in hand, ready to capture the star on video.

She shot footage of Duncan getting into his car.

Then he shot her the bird and drove away.

The video itself would put an insomniac to sleep.

The only way this incident was going to raise eyebrows is if the victim of Duncan’s single-finger salute was a nun or a nurse — or maybe Kobe Bryant in a wig.

Then we might have a shot at a genuine controversy here.

It’s just not going to happen.

Not with these Spurs.

Blame Gregg Popovich who, for some reason, has been hellbent on keeping this franchise focused on winning. That doesn’t leave much time for trouble making.

Duncan, in the heat of the moment, went rogue.

While the execution may have been fundamentally sound, he’ll have to work much harder to taint his reputation.

This street cred thing isn’t easy.

The Cheap Seats

This hasn’t been a good month for women when it comes to pro sports, thanks to teams and personalities who

decided to get a chuckle at the other sex’s expense.

The New York Knicks’ own television partner, MSG Network, had to pull billboard advertisements that were clearly offensive.

One of the messages on those billboards, Sports Illustrated reports, suggested that New Yorkers would have a better time if they quit trying to pick up less-than-attractive women and attended Knicks games instead.

Then there is TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley, who, when discussing qualifications for sideline sports reporting, told the same publication, “I will say this: They have hot, great-looking women on TV now. But if you are an ugly woman, you ain’t got no chance of getting a TV job.”

If you’re the Knicks, MSG Network or TNT, don’t you worry about turning off an entire gender?

It’s fascinating how sports leagues rush to find ways to embrace women in hopes of selling their product to a larger audience.

The NFL’s move to dress players in pink in support of breast cancer awareness isn’t completely about charity.

So one would think that the people who run these leagues, if for no other reason than to protect their own financial interests, would do a better job of policing their teams and talent.

W. SCOTT BAILEY is a staff writer for the San Antonio Business Journal. He can be contacted at sbailey@bizjournals.com.

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